Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas / / ed. by Angela Kim Harkins, Harry O. Maier.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2022 Part 1
• MitwirkendeR: Arcari, Luca,; Batovici, Dan,; Bazzana, Giovanni B.,; Choi, Jung H.,; Combs, Jason Robert,; Harkins, Angela Kim,; Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland,; Lipsett, B. Diane,; Maier, Harry O.,; Tagliabue, Aldo,; Wilson, Brittany E.,
• HerausgeberIn: Harkins, Angela Kim,; Maier, Harry O.,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages , 10
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XII, 275 p.)

The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most well-attested Christian works. Its popularity arguably exceeded that of the canonical Gospels. Many early Christian thinkers regarded the Shepherd as authoritative and cited it in their own writings, even though its status as Scripture was controversial. The far-reaching influence of the Shepherd during the first few centuries is attested in part by the many languages in which it was copied: Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Middle Persian, and Georgian. The early dating and wide dissemination of the Shepherd of Hermas offers us access to a period when canonical boundaries were elastic. This volume treats religious experience in the Shepherd, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. It complements a growing body of literature that explores the text from social-historical perspectives. Leading scholars approach it from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including critical literary theory, anthropology, cognitive science, affect theory, gender studies, intersectionality, and text reception. In doing so, they pose fresh questions to one of the most widely read texts in the early church, offering new insights to scholars and students alike.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Foreword -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- I The Shepherd, the Self, and Subjectivity -- Negotiating the Experience of Possession in Hermas’s Shepherd -- A True Prophet as a Mouthpiece of the Spirit? Cultivating Virtue and Control -- Gender, Volubility, and Transformation in the Shepherd of Hermas -- The Affect and Happy Objects of the Shepherd of Hermas -- II Visions and Experiences of the Divine -- Psychotropic Elements in Hermas’s First Two Visions: Between Experience and Culture -- Entering the Narrative World of Hermas’s Visions -- Experience through Narrative in the Shepherd of Hermas -- Shepherd of Hermas Vision 5 and the Christian Experience of Pagan Epiphany -- God’s Multiple Forms: Divine Fluidity in the Shepherd of Hermas -- III Experiencing the Shepherd as Text -- The Former Slave Hermas, Lady Church and ‘the Book’ -- Authority, Fragmentation, Dilution: Experiencing an Apocalyptic Text in Late Antiquity -- Bibliography -- List of Contributors -- Index of Subjects -- Ancient Text Index